The Liquid Workforce Krissy Clark: Hey it’s Krissy. This is the Uncertain Hour. If you’ve been listening to our whole season (which, if you’re not, you should), you’ll know the last few episodes have been about Jerry Vazquez, a former janitor who was not employed by the company whose name was on his uniform, or by the companies whose offices he cleaned. At one point most corporations, schools, churches - had their own in-house janitors who were their employees. Not so much anymore. And on today’s episode we’re looking at how did that come to be? Not just for janitors, but for so many people. Which is why Uncertain Hour producer Peter Balonon-Rosen and I sat down with a guy named Bryan Peña. Peter Balonon-Rosen: And Bryan told us how, decades ago, he worked beneath the bright fluorescent lights at a 7-Eleven in San Diego. BP: You wanna learn about people? You know that’s a great job to learn about people. Peter: Why do you say that? BP: Because you see people of all shapes, sizes and colors in different states. Peter: It was the early ‘90s and Bryan was paying his way through college, working the graveyard shift at 7-Eleven. He was majoring in economics, minoring in acting, so Bryan was fascinated with human behavior. And at 7-Eleven, he got to see that up close. BP: We'd have the guy who had no teeth who would buy 17 cans of easy cheese every Tuesday. Peter: OK BP: We had the guy who lived in back who would get donuts. Peter: Plus, that early morning dance where stoned kids in need of chili dogs and slurpees, sidestepped nurses grabbing coffee on their way in. Peter: I feel like that's a great way to see a slice of people's lives through their snacking habits or... BP: Yeah, yeah, snacking habits. Indeed. Krissy: These people became the patchwork backdrop to Bryan’s life. So after college, Bryan thought maybe he’d make a career out of his observations. Move to LA and become the people he spied on - as a Hollywood actor. BP: That did not quite work out. Krissy: Bryan never made it in the movies, but he did land a job behind the scenes at Universal Studios, in a job that would set his life in a new direction. Peter: Bryan was hired on as a commodities manager. It was not a glamorous job. Basically, he bought materials for VHS sleeves. BP: When I first started, I started negotiating cardboard and VHS tape agreements. Peter: Bryan says he loved the job. Every day was this puzzle - to work with outside vendors and buy things like cardboard at the cheapest rate. He still has a spiel ready to hammer in its importance. BP: I grew up as a, I grew up the son of a single mother, and I've seen how opportunity or lack thereof affects the home. So it wasn't going to be, I'm just saving 17 million dollars in a project. It was I'm saving, you know, 400 jobs, you know, 500 forklift drivers. You know, so if I can save money I can save these jobs over here. And that's just human nature. You want to tie things to the greatest possible stakes. Krissy: Good for saving jobs maybe, but also helping the company’s bottom line and shareholder value. Eventually Bryan’s duties changed from just buying commodities like cardboard, to helping the company find good deals on something else. People’s labor. BP: Eventually I became part of the team at Universal that managed temporary labor and stuff like that. Krissy: So then it's not, it's not an object, it's a person. BP: It's not an object. It's not a — it's not a person, but its people at scale. Krissy: People who would work at Universal, but not for Universal. Welcome to The Uncertain Hour. I’m Krissy Clark. This season we’re looking at the rise of the non-employee - all the temps, subcontractors, independent contractors, freelancers and trainees that help power American business. Increasingly, some companies have shed in-house jobs in favor of hiring outside companies or individuals to do that same work. Labor has changed from a relationship between employee and employer into another commodity, like cardboard, to be bought, sold, or rented out at the right price. Today, this idea has grown to be a part of everything we do. Peter: Like, picture a name tag. Something someone might wear behind the counter at a hotel or an airport or pinned to scrubs in a hospital.This name tag, it'll have someone’s name, obviously. Maybe their position. And likely where they work. But that last part often doesn’t tell the whole story. Someone in a FedEx uniform might collect a paycheck from FedEx, or a third-party contractor. More than half the people who work at Google, don’t work for Google. Krissy: And it’s like this all over the place. From janitors like Jerry Vazquez in California, to warehouse pickers in the midwest, to New York City paralegals. Over the past few decades, some companies have started moving away from in-house employees in favor of these outside work arrangements. There’s been this seismic shift in how we do business in America. On this episode, we’re gonna talk to the people who argue all this disconnected labor...it’s a good thing. We’re gonna hear from the people who helped pioneer this way of thought, ask why they think outsourcing is a tool that can be used for good, and examine their vision for American work. Peter is gonna take it from here. -- Peter: I wanna hit you with a stat that shocked me. In 2019, over a quarter of the world’s largest employers didn’t just make or sell products. They also rented out people. People who provide labor for other companies. This stat comes from an analysis of the world’s largest employers, provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. And it made me pause. Like...how could companies make such a huge business out of providing labor to other companies? And on the flipside, why would those other companies want their workers employed by someone else? We can answer those questions by looking at Bryan Peña, and his journey from 7-Eleven clerk to where he is today. Because Bryan’s made a career out of a simple worldview: That companies shouldn’t have to hire people who provide work for them. Today, Bryan heads a consulting firm that advises companies on how to connect with workers who aren’t their employees. But back in 1998 - on Bryan's first day at Universal Studios - he felt like an imposter in the corporate world, with its corporate jargon. And heads up - there’s definitely gonna be some corporate jargon here. Jargon that says a lot about how businesses think about workers. But anyways, back to Bryan and his first day at Universal. BP: I remember going up to the 30th floor of the building and being absolutely terrified. My knees were literally shaking, that I didn't what I was doing. And someday they're going to find me out. And I was certain that that was going to happen. Peter: But Bryan played it cool. Put on his game face. And got to work. And as his job morphed from paying for cardboard to people’s labor, it felt important. BP: What we're doing is we're putting people to work and we're making it possible for people to have jobs. Peter: Not employment, but jobs - basically renting people’s labor for a certain amount of time. Usually from temp agencies. Bryan would find people to do receptionist jobs, back-fill full time employees and work in call centers. BP: Really any sort of element where a human has to do or not do something in an organization? That's the category of spend that we were managing. Peter: OK, there’s that corporate jargon. Category of spend. A specific area a company earmarks money for. Like “travel and lodging” or “IT” or “professional services”, aka labor and expertise rented from people who aren’t your employees. At the time, Universal Studios was owned by Seagram’s - maybe best known for being half of a Seagram’s and seven. But Seagram’s wasn’t just liquor; it owned Universal, the record label PolyGram, and Spencer’s Gifts - that store at the mall with lava lamps and graphic tees. All those places? They needed people. BP: You'll be working with a producer who asked to staff his office. And you know, a week later, you're in the middle of nowhere at Spencer gifts where the guy says, Yeah, I just need people. I back up the prison bus and they they go to work Peter: Yeah, you heard that right - prison bus. Prisoners to work as packers in a warehouse. BP: He was willing to hire people from prisons to be able to do that. And he was basically saying the background is less important. Peter: And were you helping him source that? BP: Yes, we were working with him to help identify the suppliers to do that. Peter: ‘Cause when it came to renting people’s labor, there were all these intricacies and options that weren’t there when Bryan was buying cardboard.